Phenotypic, morphometric and genetic characterization of Khukhri, an indigenous chicken of Jharkhand 

Abstract

In Jharkhand, indigenous poultry farming, also known as backyard poultry, is a widespread and culturally significant practice, particularly among the rural and tribal populations. The present study was conducted to survey, evaluate the performance under village and farm management conditions and molecular characterization of Khukhri chickens of Chotanagpur plateau of Jharkhand. The survey was conducted on 270 households and 540 native chickens. The phenotypic characters of native chickens studied showed the mix type predominant plumage colour. The overall shank colour was predominantly yellow (85.56%) followed by slaty-black. All the chickens (100%) had red earlobe, white skin and red comb.Adult body weight were observed to be 1552.18±27.46 and 1182.04±14.30 kg, however shank length (cm) were observed to be 9.85±0.08 and 8.73±0.05 for cock and hen, respectively. Twenty blood samples were collected in group 1 and 30 from Ranchi district in group 2. Twenty primers were screened, out of which 16 generated polymorphic amplification patterns. RAPD-PCR analysis generated a total of 172 bands, 168 of them were polymorphic. It was observed that primer OPA-16 amplified maximum number (16) of polymorphic bands and PBG-5 amplified lowest number (5) of polymorphic bands. Among the 16 primers used, three-fourth (75%) were highly polymorphic. The average number of amplified bands per primer ranged from 2.2 to 7.46 and the size of the amplified bands varied between 100 to 3000 base pairs. The mean value of Nei’s gene diversity and Shannon’s information index was 0.28±0.01 and 0.43±0.01 in group 1 and 0.29±0.01 and 0.44±0.01 165 in group 2 respectively.